Fun times.

I would assume most avid readers among you would have seen this word appearing and know it’s meaning and how it’s used, but to me who’s still trying to grasp English as my third language, it’s an interesting new thing for me.

Anyway, it’s the use of the word/notation ‘[sic]‘, used beside a quotation to state that, the quote is deliberately shown with incorrect spelling or other mistakes, typically to retain the original form as was written by the original author (more details about it on Answers.com).

It reminded me of the conversation I had with Prof. Hiroshi Ishii when he was visiting HIT Lab NZ at a time I was doing my masters there. He is an amazing person, and I have to say just that single conversation with him that evening changed my ideas about technology greatly, and ultimately shaped my thinkings about how I would design future products, including ZenCub3d.

It is all about the people, I remember him telling me. Even if we all go back about our respected fields of research in our own ivory towers, technology’s ultimate goal will remain the same, that to which betters people’s lives. This especially holds true for us that does research in user interfaces, we often get stuck developing something that is technologically brilliant but forget about how it actually relates to the average human beings.

People are not purely logical beings, we are more emotions than anything (well, most of us). So it doesn’t matter what if you think about your research/product/design, whether it’s cool / complex / full of awesome features, if your mom can’t use it and instantly grasp the concept and find it meaningful, then, it is useless.

Btw, those are not his exact words, but that’s sort of the main idea.

What does this have to do with the new word that I learn?

Well, not directly, other than to remind me of a Japanese article (which I read using Google’s translations) about Prof. Ishii’s debate with another Japanese public figure, an education commentator of sorts. Sorry I don’t have a link to that article, it was such a long time ago (plus the translation was really bad, as automatic translations are). However, part of the debate was about historic text in textbooks, that it’s Prof. Ishii’s view that the actual original hand-written script should be preserved and shown in the textbook if possible, that we are loosing a huge amount of information by teaching students Shakespeare in modern standard fonts like Times New Roman or Lucida Grande. The ink usage, the speed, the pen pressure, the fluctuation of these, observed in people’s handwritings, add that extra dimension of insight to what the original author is feeling, thinking, living. Well ok, the example they were using were more Japanese history-oriented instead of Shakespeare, but you get the drift.

The more mature among you should totally understand what I’m saying, having read or made (or should I say experienced) hand-written love letters. They have special powers, those pieces of paper with manual ink marks. Even the simplest and shortest ones convey more emotions from the author than typed pages will ever do.

Seeing ‘[sic]‘ I now feel alot closer to the author than otherwise.

It is an interesting thing, that at this standardised digital day and age, the closest that we can come to preserving that extra dimension about the original author, is through their mistakes.

(If anyone quote any of my writings, I know I’ll get pages after pages of that word…)

Over the last few weeks there’s an excitement in the air, and much of that is due to the imminent global launch of the iPhone 3G. Not much else needs be said about this device really so I won’t do an intro here, even my mum know about it.

What most people in the rest of the world might not realise though, New Zealanders are the first in the world to get the OPPORTUNITY to get their hands on one of these things, with the international date line drawn on our immediate right and everything. Yeah, we’re like that kid in class whose first name and last name all starts with ‘A’, and gets called by the teacher first, all the time, every time.

I write “OPPORTUNITY” in caps in the previous paragraph for a pretty simple reason. It was almost a certainty that most people I know (that have spare cash) will get an iPhone, knowing that it only costs NZ$199 + a 2 year contract. At this point all the people fingering their wallet are only looking for that NZ$199. But that is not to be. The 2 year contract ties the user to pay NZ$250 per month, so that’s $6000 over the 2 year period. You win again, Universe. From the “now-let-me-get-my-cheque-book” to the puppy-watery-eyes-staring-through-the-shop-window-at-the-price-tag, the certainty now becomes a mere option. A bank-breaking luxury option at that.

This is the worst deal IN THE WORLD for consumers that wants to get their hands on an iPhone, accroding to John Campbell when he’s grilling the marketing guy from Vodafone. But then again, this can change if they starts selling iPhones in Zimbabwe.

All and all, this is pretty bad PR for Vodafone NZ I must say, the kind that someone will get fired from. Multiple someones.

I know at least I would rather buy a few MacBooks than an iPhone now; I guess this is one way to boost MacBook sales…

Very much looking forward to someone come in and save us from this monopoly. Maybe the original monopoly, NZ Telecom?!

Granted, I don’t drive a Humvee, or style a cornrow hair cut, and even the warden was an old guy who didn’t know martial arts(but then again, never under-estimate someone with a Chuck Norris-style mustache), but I indeed wasn’t able to stop the parking warden from giving me a ticket, right in front of me.

Now I remember why we made the Parking Warden video in the first place…

One a side note, our parking warden video was nominated for the BitFilm Festival, in the Machinima Category, and for that reason I’ll be going to Stuttgart, Germany, WooHoo~

I’ll be leaving on Thursday and I’ll follow up on the trip on this blog.